Burton/Mt. Buller Rail Event

July 24, 2006

The Burton/Mt. Buller Rail Event was held on Saturday night, the 22nd of July, under clear skies with ten of Australia’s top snowboarders competing for $1,500 cash for first place at Australia’s Mt. Buller.

Without a doubt, it was one of the best rail events ever held in Australia. The rail is an actual street rail, which was closed off from two o’clock in the afternoon, for the Buller park crew to move in their drop-in ramp and scaffolding set up, which gave all the riders the speed they needed to gap to the rail. The ten riders invited included Marc Baker, Chris Boadle, Max Cookes, Chris Eacott, Alex Kutaysov, Aaron Maxwell, Tom Pelly, Nick Rochester, Robbie Walker and Mikey Williams.

Crowd fave’s Robbie Walker (K2) and Alex Kutaysov (Gnu) started things off pretty quick with front board pretzels out, as did Marcy Baker (Ride). Mikey Williams (Forum) rode insane from the get go, hitting the gap to the rail straight away, then sliding through the kink on one of the outside rails which had never been made before. Chris Eacott (Burton) switch front boarded the rail straight away, and Max Cookes (Burton) then started to spin onto the center rail, which had the crowd going crazy.

After about forty minutes, riders started slowing down and that’s when Chris Boadle (Burton) decided he really wanted a spot on the podium and made one of the smoothest backside 270′s to lipslide and nollie back lipped one of the side rails as well. After an hour and a half it was all over with one of the biggest product tosses ever going on when the judges announced that not one, but two riders had won the event as they couldn’t decide between them, so Chris and Mikey got $1000 each in cold hard cash. Thanks to Jacqui and the mt buller park team and the aussie Burton team.